SEGA Lawyers Demand “Immediate Suspension” of Steam Database Over Alleged Piracy

[bruceleelegend]

The popular and entirely legal Steam Database has found itself in a precarious position following two erroneous DMCA notices from SEGA. Steam Database's host is being asked to suspend the platform due to a claimed lack of response to the first notice. This prompted the site to take down entirely legal content in an effort to address the problem.

SEGAWith millions of visitors every month, Steam Database (SteamDB) has established itself as a formidable resource for gaming fans.

 

The third-party service’s aim is to promote Steam by providing insight into the gaming platform and the masses of data made available via its official APIs. SteamDB’s front page provides data on Steam’s most-played games, displays real-time player stats, plus lists of trending games, popular releases, and other data. The site also embeds direct links for people to buy titles legally.

As of yesterday, however, the entire platform was at risk of being taken offline following errors by one of the best-known brands in gaming.

SEGA Believes Steam Database is a Pirate Site

Yesterday afternoon, SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik took to Twitter with an appeal, asking if someone was able to get in touch with SEGA over a pressing matter. SEGA had apparently identified SteamDB as a pirate site illegally distributing its game Yakuza: Like a Dragon and had issued DMCA notices to have the game taken down.

Of course, SteamDB was not hosting or linking to pirate copies of SEGA’s game but the situation was already reaching crisis point.

Initial Complaint Sent to Cloudflare

To find out more about the situation, TorrentFreak spoke with Djundik who informs us that SEGA sent a copyright complaint to Cloudflare on March 12, 2021, which eventually made its way to SteamDB, via its host, on March 19, 2021.

“We replied to the e-mail address that sent it to Cloudflare asking for clarification [..] and explained that SteamDB doesn’t actually sell or provide any game downloads. Apparently they ignored said e-mail because today we got a longer and more serious DMCA notice that went out to our host directly,” Djundik says.

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